


Christmas of the Year of Our Lord, Sixteen Twenty-Five

by lynndyre



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 20:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2825132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Friendship happened to Athos without his notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas of the Year of Our Lord, Sixteen Twenty-Five

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Supertights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supertights/gifts).



Friendship happened to Athos without his notice. He joined the King's Musketeers on the strength of his previous service, and a distant acquaintance with Captain Treville, but sociability beyond the absolute requirements of Court and mission was beyond him for months in Anne's wake.

It was practicality to work with those in the regiment who matched his level of skill, and excelled in complementary disciplines. It was fitting that they were good men. It was luck that they made him laugh. 

Together they were effective. Over time they became moreso. To excel in his chosen pursuit bolstered Athos' damaged sense of himself, and those they fought, be they enemy spies or the Cardinal's own Red Guards, offered a satisfying outlet for his more violent tendencies. If disputes with the Guards occurred at greater frequency than was strictly indicative of restraint, well. It was unthinkable not to defend his allies.

On an autum night when Athos was drunk and sick to death of corralling other men to order, Porthos remained to ensure he made it home. They gained the street, and he pushed Porthos’ arm away, and stumbled, nearly falling. Porthos hauled him upright, and did not let go, wrapping an arm around Athos’ shoulder. Athos sighed, torn between appreciation and resentment of such demonstrable caring, and leant into the support. He could feel Porthos’ smile at his surrender. 

“Easy. We’ll get you home safe.”

Athos yielded, as graciously as he might. After so much wine, he floated somewhere outside himself as they made their way through the dark streets. He would rather have kept the shield of his annoyance, but Porthos’ grip was too insidious a comfort. He liked the feeling. He trusted Porthos. 

Strange. He’d been fairly certain he’d never trust again. 

They shared the bed, stripped to their linens. Porthos was warm, and did not kick, and Athos worried at the feeling of being content with all the wary appraisal of a man worrying a loose tooth.

 

Winter settled in, cold and wet and familiar, and while remote towns and villages were content to sleep away as much of the season as possible, Paris was above such parochial traditions, and considered it a point of pride for all aspects of higher culture to continue unabated. The ranks of Paris' summer aristocracy were now swollen with those taking advantage of the season to escape the concerns of a landowner while the soil slept. 

Dances, social gatherings increased. So did arguments, and from thence to duels, drunken and otherwise, deadly or merely inept. The Musketeers were busy between Paris and the coast, between society and the persistent, intermittent, yet inevitable Hugenot dissent and unrest. The Treaty looked clear to being signed, for the present, but Captain Treville had held them alert until it was certain, and that would be in the new year.

It was not the Protestants, or even the Red Guards, however, who brought Athos low, but a fever that gently overwarmed him through the day, and burned him into oblivion by the midpoint of the night.

If asked, Athos would have expected his absence to be noted but not remarked upon, save perhaps by the Captain. But by afternoon, assigned duty or no, Porthos and Aramis had made their way to Athos' lodgings, and kept shift together as the early night deepened, and the church bells sounded, distant and clear. 

 

Aramis wore fatigue and worry like the tragic hero of a romantic tale, as though adversity were a test of God. He has a rosary of wood, every bead smoother than a river stone, and he prayed them over Athos, bead by bead, and prayer by prayer. With messy locks of hair fall about his face, disarrayed by his fretting hands, he looked the image of a saint, or a penitent martyr.

Athos's face was pale, the rims of his eyes reddened. His eyes were shut, but Porthos knew beneath the lids a tracery of burst veins spreads red across the white. Instead all that could be seen was the purple-blue stain across his eyelids, until they seemed bruised, and thin as onionskin. Dark shadows beneath his eyes have faded a little as he slept, but it is not a restful sleep, and they remain. Oily and unkempt, Athos' hair has none of the charm that Aramis' manages so effortlessly, and it falls and clings about his face. If Aramis looks a saint, Athos looks always and only like a man, and the flaws that might- should- make him ugly, only make Porthos' heart ache. 

In the long stretches of the night, Porthos' memory tricked him with the sound of his mother's breathing, strained and fading. He rubbed his eyes, and shook the sound from his ears. Aramis met his glance over the single candleflame, but only half-nodded and looked away again. Porthos wondered whose deathbed Aramis had sat for, what other sickbeds were there in his memories and his prayers. He didn't ask. 

They showed it in different ways, and concealed it in still others, but they were all of them flawed men. Best to stick together. Aramis asked God to watch out for them. Porthos simply did what he could here on earth.

The heat in Athos' skin abated as the sky lightened, fever lesser but not broken. Aramis settled his hat over the wild mess of his hair, and left to report to the Captain, and in search of food. Porthos watched him deftly avoid a slop bucket, and disappear up the road in the grey winter sun. The constant motion of Paris itself was soothing, and he watched from the window long after Aramis was out of sight, then turned back to the bed.

"Come on, then, wake up. The Captain's got cinnamon bark, that the King gave him himself, and he's said there'll be wine mulled with it for all the regiment at Christmas. You'll like that. You wouldn't want to miss out." 

He petted Athos with the heavy, gentle touch he would use to calm a spooked horse, and was rewarded when, instead of waking, Athos turned his face further into the pillow, and tension slowly leaked from his body. The lines at his eyes grew less deep, until he looked as though sleeping, not suffering. 

"Never mind. You sleep. We'll save you a cup."


End file.
